We Are More Than Our Shadows
by QuiteVoice-LoudThoughts
Summary: Dean is having trouble facing his emotions and the traumas off his past. Castiel is starting to have nightmares of a time he has long forgotten. Memories of his true self, his angle self, surface and he struggles with guilt and regret. Dean and Cas grow together through the pain to find acceptance of who they are. I will change it to M later but the one chapter up is clean so...


Steam mingled with the smell of sweat in the boy's locker room while the class cleaned themselves off to be presentable for the next period. One by one the boys left to dry off but dean remained under the old shower head as it continued to pelt hot beads of water at his firm body. There had been a few complaints over the years about the showers. People worried that because they were old and broken they could be dangerous but dean enjoyed the aggressive nature of the them. Sure there were only two temperatures that it could accomplish, ice cold and hell fire, but even so dean was calm here. He felt the water hit him, how it tingled as it rolled down his body and pooled beneath him before trickling down the drain. He felt it and it was real. His tanned body was flushed red where the water had heated his skin. He saw it and it was real. This calmed dean because walking down the hallway of an innocent high-school when he knew what was really out there made everything so surreal. So even the little things that would make him feel present and normal were a blessing.

He didn't know where he belonged. Two perfectly opposite worlds and he didn't belong to either. The ignorance of the high-school life where people cried over tests and break ups. Dean has seen too much to ever belong there, but he still hasn't seen enough to earn the title of a hunter either. As much as he hated to admit it, he was just a kid. The enormity of it all was overwhelming and it scared Dean. Lives were at stake and sacrifices and failures would happen. Guilt and regret would haunt him and he wasn't ready to cope with that. He often felt like he was watching both worlds from behind a window. Reserved, distant and never engaging. Like a benched player in a sports game just waiting to be called in. But as they say, fake it 'till you make it.

"Hey Dean," a strong voice called from across the room, "if you stay in there any longer you might get heat stroke." The laughter from the group echoed off the tile walls. Dean jostled the nob of the shower until the water stopped. The old pipes didn't seem get the message though, water still dripped slowly but steadily from the shower head like drool from a tired child. He put a towel around his waist and turned to meet his "concerned" caller with a cheeky grin. "You'd like that wouldn't you Jack," dean said with a playful sarcastic tone,"but unlike you I'm not a little bitch." Both stood there with looks of rage and hate painted clearly on their face. There was a moment where they stood there while the whole room was silent except for the erratic sound of the dripping showers. Their held back smiles broke across their faces as everyone started laughing again. The class started to file out of the door until it was just Jack and Dean. Jack threw a ball of jeans, a shirt and a dusty leather jacket to Dean while walking backwards towards the door. "Class in 10 okay? Don't be late, we might be doing partner work today and I swear if I'm stuck with that ass hat Aaron as my partner again I will shoot you." His back pushed the door open and he slipped out of sight to fallow the rest.

Dean jerked his locker open so he could put his gym cloths away. The hinges, sticky with age, screeched as they were disrupted. The sound reverberated off the walls and crashed back into Dean. He didn't hear the creak of an old locker though. The high pitched groan of the metal echoed back as the agonized scream of his mother. He recoiled against the tile wall and tried to breath but his ribs were like a restricting metal cage. The weight pulled him to the floor and he gulp in shallow breaths. He felt the blood pump franticly from his heart and squeeze through his veins. It was heavy and thick like mercury. Every thing went hazy. He could hear the dripping water smack against the tile now louder than ever. The sound pounded in his head until unwanted memories came pouring out. The sound was no longer of water but the crackling of a flame. The once comforting heat now enveloped him in a scorching blaze and surrounded him like a fire. He cowered further into the wall, tears streaming down his face. He was no longer the high-school boy Dean but a four year old boy reaching out for his mother. The tile walls and the shower heads melted away to flames and his childhood home. He remembered his mother screaming. He wanted to run to her, to save her, but he was pinned to the ground by the weight of his own body. He was claustrophobic in his own body, trapped in his own skin. He shrunk into a heap on the ground as his muscles and bones rapidly got heavier. It felt as if someone was pouring molten lava into his body, it was incredibly dense and filled him with searing pain. He felt the hot ground against his cheek and saw the flames caress the only home he has ever known and leave behind debris. The sounds were now muffled and the flames were hazier. He felt his consciousness slipping. He pleaded desperately for someone to save his mother. He was screaming at first but his pleads died away into a sobbing mumble. He herd his mother scream again and again, the wails of his infant brother and the urgent commanding voice of his father shouting instructions at him. These sounds throbbed in his head until he slipped into darkness.


End file.
